Mixing and Mastering, Producer

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: Pete Greene and Ron W. Griffin have turned out some of my favorite mixes in the Rock-Pop-Gospel space, Impeccable attention to details with that team. Mick Guzauski, Bob Ludwig, Chab together crated some of the most exciting music in many years with their interpretations and mixes of Daft Punk's Random Memories album. I also should mention the team that mixed, and mixes, many of Eminem's material. Some mixes on many of his albums are stellar, sometimes including groundbreaking sound design, and new mixing techniques.

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: Broadly speaking my work falls into two groups, and the 2nd group has two sub-divisions. The first group is folks that want straight ahead mixing, and some that want just mastering and then some clients want both, I say "straight ahead" because there is usually only discussion about minor mix changes, if any, and minor adjustments, again, if any. Sometimes the first mix is the one, but nearly always, by the second or third minor change, I am finished and, hopefully, the client is very pleased. Now the second group, like I said, has two subgroups. The second group, overall, gets a lot more personal attention than the first group just discussed. This group has my attention as an engineer-producer, applying more critical skills and technical tools than straight mixing. For example, many engineers will mix a vocal track using only volume and pan. The next step might be to include a plug-in that automatically limits the amount of breaths we hear in the recording. Either or both technique may be used in the first group. But in this second group, a third technique might include hand edits to every syllable and breath of that track. That technique can create an incredible vocal track, enabling all sorts of subsequent processing. But, it takes time, and therefore can be more expensive. And lastly, clients that want a full-onboard producer/production partner, will benefit from all the best technical assets, and also allow me to fill the role of producer, or what some today refer to as "director".